Intonation

Intonation is crucial for communication. It's also a largely unconscious mechanism, and as such, a complex aspect of pronunciation. It's no surprise that many teachers don't feel confident about tackling it in the classroom. When teaching grammar or lexis, we find ways of making the language accessible to our learners. How then to do this with intonation?

• What is intonation?

• Why teach intonation?

• Can I improve my own awareness of intonation?

What is intonation?

 
Intonation is about how we say things, rather than what we say. Without intonation, it's impossible to understand the expressions and thoughts that go with words.
Listen to somebody speaking without paying attention to the words: the 'melody' you hear is the intonation. It has the following features:

• It's divided into phrases, also known as 'tone-units'.

• The pitch moves up and down, within a 'pitch range'. Everybody has their own pitch range. Languages, too, differ in pitch range. English has particularly wide pitch range.

• In each tone unit, the pitch movement (a rise or fall in tone, or a combination of the two) takes place on the most important syllable known as the 'tonic-syllable'. The tonic-syllable is usually a high-content word, near the end of the unit.

• These patterns of pitch variation are essential to a phrase's meaning. Changing the intonation can completely change the meaning.
  
  Example:
  
  • Say: 'It's raining'.
  • Now say it again using the same words, but giving it different meaning. You could say it to mean 'What a surprise!', or 'How annoying!',or 'That's great!'. There are many possibilities. 

 

Why teach intonation? 

 
Intonation exists in every language, so the concept we're introducing isn't new. However, learners are often so busy finding their words that intonation suffers. Yet intonation can be as important as word choice - we don't always realise how much difference intonation makes:

• Awareness of intonation aids communication.

• Incorrect intonation can result in misunderstandings, speakers losing interest or even taking offence!

Though it's unlikely our learners will need native-speaker-level pronunciation, what they do need is greater awareness of intonation to facilitate their speaking and listening.

 

Can I improve my own awareness of intonation? 

It's difficult to hear our own intonation. Choose somebody to listen to closely: as you listen, visualise the melody in your head, 'seeing' how it's divided into tone-units. Next time you do a class speaking activity, focus on your students' intonation. Are there students whose language is 'correct', but something doesn't sound right? Do they come across as boring or insincere? It may well be their pitch range isn't varied enough.